Russian Doll – Nowhen

By: Kelly Kearney

Nadia’s 40^th birthday is a 10 days away and after what she went through in season one, she’s simply ready for a quiet celebration with Alan. Of course, nothing stays simple in her life; things always fall into some sort of deadly strange, and this time, it’s her godmother, Ruth, who winds up crashing into some drama and sending Nadia on a trip back in time to change fate and right the wrongs of her life.

Two Shriveled Up Nick Caves Board A Train

The title card opens on a familiar yet much older redhead (Iren Bordan) hammering away at the walls of what appears to be an abandoned subway tunnel. She’s searching for a duffle bag and when she finds it, she is a mixture of relieved and thrilled.

Cut to Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) walking to the subway station on route to the emergency room where her godmother, Ruthie (Elizabeth Ashley), is waiting to be seen post-car accident. She’s fine– just a little shaken up, but her surrogate goddaughter/one-time patient/part-time caregiver is still concerned. Should Ruthie be driving at her age? Anytime mortality enters Nadia’s mind she handles it with typical avoidance humor, and this time, she deflects from the admissions paperwork to ask 70-something Ruth if she could be pregnant. When her Godmother’s wheelchair chariot arrives to whisk her off to triage, she leaves Nadia with an observation that’s sure to return like a boomerang to the head of this show’s theme: “immortality is the great delusion of youth. Enjoy it.” But Nadia has never been young–as she points out, she’s an old soul and Ruthie knows that better than anyone.

On her way back to the hospital–bag of hooch in hand, Nadia calls bestie Maxine (Greta Lee) to catch her up on the birthday plans as well as her current smoking status. It seems Nadia is supposed to be quitting but just the thought stresses her out. She knows her lungs look like “two shriveled up Nick Caves” and for now, she is ok with that. When Maxine steers the conversation to Ruth, Nadia digresses into a sort of frenzied nostalgia turned panicky regret. Ruth isn’t doing well—health-wise, and after four years of acting as her caregiver and dealing with doctors, Nadia is starting to lose it. Ruth is the only one who was there from the start of her journey-who saw the evolution of Nadia and the downfall of her mother, Nora. She is the human tie that binds the past to Nadia’s present; weaved into the tapestry of her memories. Nadia cannot fathom a world without her in it—so she doesn’t, and instead, changes the subject to her birthday–a loaded topic considering what went down (her, repeatedly down a flight of steps) on her 36^th. Maxine announces she is planning another birthday party because the last one went so well and that’s Nadia’s cue to break her bestie’s heart because this year, she isn’t feeling a party. She just wants a quiet night in with Alan (Charlie Barnett) — the man she landed on the same timeline with. That must mean something greater than whatever quail egg appetizer and champagne toast Maxine has planned. Jealous, her friend starts ranting about this Alan guy she doesn’t even know, but Nadia hangs up on her as she heads down to the 6 train. She’ll be at Maxine’s in minutes to hear her rants anyway.

Unfinished Business

Or will she? It’s not likely on this train. After running into her favorite hairdresser hobo, Horse (Brendan Sexton III), who mistakes her for her mother (how does he know Nora?) he gives her the double birded “Big Apple” hello. But something about the subway’s atmosphere is off. For example: the people are too polite, the fashion is antiquated, and the Sophie’s Choice poster, all points to something not being quite right. It’s like she stepped back in time when the doors closed behind her. “Is this some sort of ‘80s flash mob,” she wonders, and grabs a copy of the now defunct Village Voice and sees the date: 1982. This train just Marty McFly’d her back to a time when New York crime was at an all-time high and she was still a fetus! Stepping off the train and right into Derrek (Ephraim Sykes) a red beret wearing Guardian Angel– city volunteers who worked as neighborhood watch groups ensuring people got around safely, a confused Nadia gets an escort home because needless to say she’s a bit delirious over this new birthday nightmare. As ‘80s goth music sets the mood for the dark and shambolic city streets, Nadia tries to make sense of what this could mean—maybe Alan knows? She reaches for her phone but instead finds a pack of matches from the Gumball Bar and inside the cover a note to meet a person named Chez. She makes her way to the hole in the wall and as Peter Murphy sings “Undead! Undead!” we can’t help but wonder if Nadia missed something on her 36^th birthday. Did she survive that night or is this another layer of Dante’s fiery Hell?

After a few bourbon’s she spills her story to the friendly barfly, Danny (Malachi Nimmons). She tells him she’s a time traveler, “no, time prisoner” after the 6 train went into a worm hole and popped her out in the past. All things considered, she’s handling it fine and so is Danny because this is New York; a time traveling woman who spews acerbic wit and insults is a dime a dozen. Nadia isn’t new and the friendly Danny is delighted to talk to her. They trade facts about each other’s lives, like how Danny is a not-so-proud employee of the commercial King of yester yore, Crazy Eddie! Nadia can hardly believe it. There is no more solid proof you’re in last century New York than a reminder of the low-rent Radio Shack King who screamed out electronics deals from your TV, and who eventually went to the big house for securities fraud. It’s practically a New York fairytale and Danny is what? Crazy Eddie’s Rapunzel? Nadia doesn’t have time to process whatever the future holds for her drinking buddy because Chez (Sharlto Copley) the man of the hour, shows up being chased by a guy looking for his money. With no introduction he grabs Nadia and drags her out of the bar and the two make a run for it. Chezzare Carrera, is his full name, seems friendly, not that Nadia knows why, she just met the creep. Still, the night is young and this romp through the past is more interesting than whatever Maxine had planned, so for now she’s going along for the ride. One that is about to get warm and fuzzy when Chez shares his old-timey designer drugs with her. The kind Nadia only heard/dreamed about. He’s got Quaaludes and legendary Black Beauties and she’s thrilled because they just don’t make those party drugs anymore. Forget her current dilemma she isn’t missing out on a chance to sample Chez’s goods—in more ways than one. Without hesitation she downs the Black Beauty and pockets the Lude for later because, “f*ck it! Looks like Purim came early this year!” which is her way of saying “treat yourself!” Feeling buzzed she winds up making out with Chez on the wet concrete streets of Astor Place like they’ve done it a million times before.

The Universe Finally Found Something Worse Than Death

Where are they heading in such a rush? To a break in, of course! The keys in Nadia’s pocket open the door to Chez’s big plans; a stolen duffle bag hidden under the couch of a stranger’s house that for some reason, doesn’t seem so strange to Nadia. But we will get to that later—for now, her big mouth almost alerts the homeowner, so Chez forces her out the door and back to his place for some rails of cocaine and romance on the couch. That is, until she has to use the bathroom, and what waits her inside that room is something she didn’t see coming. Cue Danzig’s, “Mother” a fitting anthem for this Freaky Friday reboot. The reflection in the vanity’s mirror isn’t her own but that of her pregnant mother, Nora’s (Chloe Sevigny)! Could Chez, the man she almost went to pound-town with be her father? Nadia freaks out because the gross-out factor is too high and then bolts from the apartment before he can catch her. Chez yells out “Lenora!” so he definitely sees her mother too; it’s not just her having a Black Beauty breakdown. As she takes off towards the subway station Nadia, sees her mother in every shadow and reflection she passes. There is only one person who can help her now and that’s Alan. He must be going through the same thing.

This time, when she steps off the train she’s back in the future and presently standing in front of Alan’s apartment door. When she fills him in on what happened she’s somewhat shocked by how incurious he is about what happen to her—her misery loves Alan sized company, and these two seem a bit off wondering their cheating death bond. Sure, she has a key to his place for emergencies, but Alan seems a bit emotionless, and she can’t help but wonder if this means they have unfinished business— maybe they’re still dead? It’s not like either of them seem to feel much of anything these days. Alan is on weekly date rotations handpicked by his mother, and Nadia, well, she almost had sex with her mother’s boyfriend—so things are less than copacetic. Alan says he believes her, but he also knows she’s spent the last three birthdays assuming the “Def-Con 1” position and every year her birthday passes without ripping a hole in time and space. Maybe she’s just paranoid and high? Their conversation gets interrupted when Ruth calls her back to Lennox Hill Hospital. Before she leaves, she tells Alan she needs to get to the bottom of this time travel business and figure out who Chez is because he isn’t her father–that guy was a drinker not a drug user. She leaves him with an eerie prediction that he’s next to go back in time and in a typical Nadia goodbye—tells him to call her when he finds himself inside his mother. Yikes! Nadia sure has a way with words. Alan must know she is right because as he goes through the motions of his date, he rushed back to the subway and boards wit a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

The Kruggerand

When Nadia gets to Ruth, she finds out Chez not only dated her mother, but the “outstanding prick” also played a part in Lenora losing her Mother, Vera’s, Kruggerand gold she smuggled out of Nazi occupied Hungary to secure her family’s future. That lost inheritance was the beginning of all their problems; certainly, is escalated Lenora’s issues and now that Nadia is time traveling to make out with her mother’s ex while carrying a “herself” baby, this went from unusual to downright monumental. Fate has a funny way of keeping you on it’s path but now that Nadia is zipping through family dramas in the 6 train, maybe history isn’t so set in stone?

Back at Chez’s, Nadia convinces her mother/herself to steal the duffle bag, coincidently, the same bag we saw Vera Volvokov hiding in the opener. She knows the bag contains her grandmother’s Kruggerand and if she can return it to Vera than maybe she can change her mother’s fate? Maybe Ruthie’s too? It’s too bad Chez takes off with it first, sending Nadia back to her barfly Danny to complain about the complexities of life. In season one, when the universe cam for Nadia she refused to engage with it and said so with conviction. Now her mind has been cracked open by skipping out on the Grim Reaper and starring in this Back to the Future reboot’ When the universe tries to f*ck with you, let it.” Too bad her traveling companion doesn’t thing the same way.